


all the anger will settle down

by xocean



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gen, M/M, Nat talks Bucky home, Natasha Is a Good Bro, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, steve/bucky - Freeform, thank god for natasha romanov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 22:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5107223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xocean/pseuds/xocean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bucky goes home with a little help. Vignette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the anger will settle down

He isn't exactly shocked when she comes around the bridge, red hair muted in the gloom of St. Petersburg's winter, arching a cool eyebrow, but James had thought she would take the soft, good cop approach as opposed to flat out confronting him.

"This is getting old, you know," Natalia Romanova says, coming to stand beside him. "It's been a year. Just go back."

She's staring straight ahead, looking out at the river under the bridge, but he can't take his eyes off of her. Mainly because what the hell, kind of rude Romanova, but also because wow, she isn't sticking a tranq into his neck this instant.

"Natalia." He decides to say, just to see if she's here on a tranq-and-kidnap mission or otherwise. "Good to see you."

She turns light, smiling eyes to him. "I'm Natasha these days. Natasha Romanov."

Huh. So, no tranq-and-kidnap. Maybe she really is one of the good guys now.

"I need more time," he says.

"You need to stop being stupid," she says.

Oh. There she is, that sharp-tongued, no-nonsense, dark humored Natalia 'Black Widow' Romanova he once knew.

She isn't Natalia anymore, though. He thinks that might be for the best.

"Steve gets it. He backed off after your last message. You need time and space to recover. But it's been a year." Her eyes aren't smiling anymore. "It's time to come back."

"Why?" He can't help but say. "I've got nothin' left to -"

"Oh, don't go there," Natasha says irritably. "You are just like him."

He blinks, thrown off. "What are you -"

She waves a hand vaguely at the river. "He says the same thing.  _Why would he come back, Nat? I've got nothing to offer him_."

He feels a rush of indignation and anger, all directed at Steve. "That's stupid, that's not - he doesn't have to offer me anything more, he -"

Natasha stares at him pointedly, and he kind of gets the point. He shuts up.

"Did he send you?" He can't help but ask, maybe a little wishfully.

She picks up on it, and that's why her tone is a little apologetic. "No. He doesn't know. I thought it was for the best." Natasha hesitates briefly. "I didn't want to get his hopes up for nothing. Steve... I don't want to see him sad. I think it's worse, you know, that he knows exactly where you are, and he's not allowed to find you."

He redirects his gaze to the river.

"Listen," she says, "I didn't come here to make you feel bad."

That's news to him.

"I came to just, maybe, suggest that it's time for you to stop running." There's a delicate pause. "I know how this must feel -"

Oh god. "Don't," he says, restraining an eye-roll, "Just don't."

"I will." Natasha says defiantly. "Because you're an idiot if you think there's nothing I've gone through that can't relate to you."

He pauses. Thinks it through. That's not entirely accurate, but -

"The children of the Red Room are bound to it to death," he says. More of an echo, the words that the Red Room creators so often liked to repeat. He had said it too, he thinks, when he taught her, a lifetime away.

"Perhaps," Natasha says coldly, "But I already killed that god damned place."

He stills. "So that _was_ you."

He remembers the news, after the fall of the Soviet Union. She had been the prime suspect, and he was to kill her - but then HYDRA had taken over and no one cared about the bodies burning red in the winter anymore.

She gives a little nod.

Maybe she's right.

"So I should go kill HYDRA assholes?"

She quirks a small smile. "You can't kill them. But you can join us and take them down."

Is that what Steve is doing? Taking down the organization that stopped shy of destroying his life?

He thinks about seeing Steve again, maybe smiling at him, maybe hugging him. He remembers his fist raining down on his face, staining Steve's skin red-purple-blue.

"Could he ever forgive me?" He says without meaning to.

Natasha's face is grim and soft at the same time. "You already know the answer to that."

He does. Steve probably forgave him the next day.

But he shouldn't, and that's the problem. He'd tried to kill him, he's killed so many people, done so many unforgivable things - Steve is good, Steve is an untarnished, small piece of light in his life that he wishes he gets to keep just for himself - but does he deserve it?

That's a negative.

"You wouldn't let him forgive you anyway," she says.

That's an affirmative.

"Maybe you can keep doing that in a better place." Natasha tilts her head. "The Tower is an open offer for you."

That's another stab of guilt in his neverending list of mistakes. "Stark?" Howard and Maria Stark, a car crash that wasn't a car crash.

Natasha looks at him like she knows exactly what he's thinking. "It's on the table. Safety, food, a room or a floor, you can argue that over with him," she says with a hint of a smile. "We're all there for now, while we finish off HYDRA."

He thinks about Tony Stark, opening his home to him, and finds himself reeling. He hasn't worked through that guilt yet.

"No."

"Then what do you want?" Natasha asks patiently.

"Steve," he says.

She doesn't smile or laugh, which is the only reason that keeps him from averting his eyes in embarrassment. They stare at each other blandly. Then she reaches into her pocket.

"It's the only number there," Natasha says, pressing a small phone into his palm.

He nods.

"I'm going now," she says.

He nods again.

He catches her elbow as she turns. He wants to say something, but he doesn't know what or how. Natasha disappears with a faint, knowing smile.

He flips open the phone the minute she is gone. His left hand hovers uncertainly over the only number in the phone. He thinks about how much he doesn't want to do this, and he thinks about how much he wishes he could see Steve.

He thinks, fuck it, and hits dial.

Steve says hello after a few rings and he has to take a minute to regroup himself. In the heavy silence that follows, Steve manages to identify his ragged breathing.

Steve says, slowly and very hopefully, "Bucky?"

It's the first time in  _months_  that the name doesn't give him a mental breakdown.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from Rachael Yamagata's song Duet, featuring Ray Lamontagne, which is a lovely song about going home.


End file.
